Textual and graphical demarcation of location from an environmental database, and interpretation of measurements including descriptive metrics and qualitative values

Abstract

A computerized system allows for collecting data for a spatially distributed group of objects or networks by either skilled or unskilled personnel and for analyzing the collected data in an environmental database.

Claims

We claim:

1. A method for conducting one or more measurement surveys of a spatially distributed group of physical objects or networks, comprising the steps of:

collecting measurement information and descriptive information for said distributed group of physical objects or networks by obtaining measurement information selected from a group consisting of measured performance metrics and inputted quality measures, obtaining descriptive information from a predefined set of selections wherein said selections are selected from the group consisting of text strings and icons, and associating and storing, under computer control, said measurement information and said descriptive information electronically with a computer or computer network;

obtaining an environmental database model of at least one physical environment in which said physical objects or networks may be distributed, said environmental database model providing a two dimensional or three dimensional representation of said at least one physical environment; and

displaying, on a display, at least one of said measurement information and said descriptive information collected in said collecting step together with at least a portion of said environmental database model with said measurement information or said descriptive information from said one or more measurement surveys.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said measurement information and said descriptive information pertains to a specific location in said environmental database model and said step of displaying includes the step of displaying said at least one of said measurement information and said descriptive information at said specific location in said environmental database model.

3. A system for conducting one or more measurement surveys of a spatially distributed group of physical objects or networks, comprising:

at least one computer;

an input for inputting measurement information selected from a group consisting of measured performance metrics and quality measures into said at least one computer,

at least one of a computer program operating on said at least one computer or at least one measurement device operating with said at least one computer which associates, under computer control, said at least one performance metric or qualitative measures with descriptive information selected from the group consisting of text strings and icons, wherein said text string and icons are selected from a predefined set;

an environmental database model operating in conjunction with said at least one computer, said environmental database model providing a two dimensional or three dimensional computer representation of at least one physical environment in which said physical objects or networks may be distributed; and

a display for displaying at least one of said measurement information and said descriptive information with at least a portion of said environmental database model with said measurement information or said descriptive information from said one or more measurement surveys.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein said measurement information and said descriptive information pertains to a specific location in said environmental database model and said display displays said at least one of said measurement information and said descriptive information at said specific location in said environmental database model.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The invention relates to the field of measurement science and field measurements, and is generally related to the measurement, visualization, and storage of measurable characteristics of any spatially distributed group of objects or networks. Specifically, this invention relates to a method and system used to measure, record, and visualize the quantitative quality or performance metric of measurable parameters as applied to communications networks and the components and infrastructure that comprise such networks. The invention is also applicable, however, to the measurement, interpretation, visualization, and storage of the quality, performance, or observable metrics or features of any group of objects distributed in space, such as a distributed network of power cables, water pipes, heating or air conditioning systems, or groups of buildings, rooms, cars, or other entities that are located in distinct locations and which have properties that may be measured or quantified.

2. Description of the Related Art

Distributed networks of components are used throughout buildings and campuses, and are vital for carrying materials throughout a facility. When buildings are built, wires must be run to connect power outlets to an external power source, and air conditioning or heating ducts must be installed throughout a facility or campus. These distributed networks of components generally distribute air, fluids, or in the case of a communication or power network, electrons, throughout a building or campus. Wireless communication networks distribute radio or optical waves to provide coverage. When deploying a distributed network of components within buildings, or between buildings, or within urban or suburban cores, it is often difficult to locate the physical location and actual installed components that comprise such distributed networks after the building or core is completely built, and field measurements must be conducted to determine suitability, quality, or proper performance of the "hidden" network. Such distributed networks are vital for the operation of any building or campus or urban area, and may include passive or active components that require power or which provide control signals, and which may be in plain sight or may be hidden underground, behind walls, located in raised ceilings, etc.

Alternatively, it is often instructive to quantify the condition, suitability, or to measure or quantify the inventory, of a number of spatially distributed objects that are in plain view. For example, on an army base or in a large apartment complex or shopping mall, there may be many different apartments or rental spaces that need to be checked and validated for suitability for tenants—the chore of ensuring there are sufficient pieces of furniture, appropriate lighting, proper number of rooms, or measuring the cleanliness, condition, or state of each apartment or office is vital to the ongoing inventory management or preparations of a real estate operation, and a computerized method for rapidly inventorying and measuring (e.g. inspecting) the condition or quality or specific counts of particular measurable objects that are spatially distributed and viewable is important.

In the case of distributed communications networks within buildings or campuses, active components, such as base station access points (for wireless local area networks), base stations (for cellular or PCS systems), routers and switches (for wired or wireless networks), cables and conduit that connect such active items, and individual user terminals (such as mainframe or portable computers, handheld devices, Bluetooth devices, or other components (fixed or portable), that may be wired or wirelessly connected to a network) are used to send information from one place to another, and these are often difficult to physically detect. Thus, measurements are often required at various locations, sometimes involving off-the-air monitoring, or monitoring from specific identifiable jacks or outlets, when components of the network are hard to see or hard to reach. Information sent in such communication networks often takes the form of voice, video, or data. To transmit information, a communications network breaks down a message into a series of digital or analog symbols, which are often represented by finite binary numbers in practice. The process of representing information can be analog or digital, as is well understood by artisans in the communications field. Such methods for representing and transmitting messages in an analog or digital communication network are well known in the art, and are described for example in the popular texts "Wireless Communications: Principles and Practice", Prentice Hall, c. 2002, 2^nd edition, by T. S. Rappaport, or "Digital Communications, Second Edition" by Bernard Sklar, c. 2001. Such transmissions may be carried over wired distributed networks, over the air via wireless RF or optical networks, optical cable networks, or any combination thereof. Similar fundamental knowledge exists for other types of distributed networks, such as cooling or heating distribution networks, plumbing, structured cable or wiring, as known and practiced by skilled artisans in such fields.

For the specific application of a communications network, it is known that data communication networks are a specific type of communication network that transmit digital information, represented as bits or bytes. While conceptually simple, the means of transmitting the data from some point A to some point B can be complicated and may widely vary in implementation. Hundreds of protocols, hardware devices, software techniques, products, and programs exist to handle how data is sent correctly and efficiently. The exact performance of a given data communication network is extremely difficult to predict or even measure because of this complexity. Depending on particular number of users, network delays outside of the campus, or movement or settings of equipment within a facility or a large area network, it is well known that there are a myriad of issues that may impact the performance of a communications network and the channels that carry the information between users of such a network. Such networks require measurements to be performed in-situ so that a technician or service worker can rapidly determine the quality of the network. In the future, however, as wireless and wired digital networks become pervasive, it will be of paramount importance to provide tools and techniques to non-technical personnel so that less-specialized people, or even simple, automated robots, can readily perform installation, test, calibration, troubleshooting, and routine maintenance on distributed networks or spatially distributed objects.

Data communication networks can often be classified as either a circuit switched or a packet switched network, both of which are well known in the art. Both network types use channels to transmit information. A channel is a name give to the communications path (or paths) between users or devices connected in a communications network. A channel may consist of many different individual hardware devices and is a specific route or possible set of routes between a transmitter and a receiver. In a circuit switched network, information is transmitted by way of an exclusively reserved channel. A network channel is reserved temporarily for the sole use of a single transmission and bits are sent all at once for the particular user. An example of this is the use of an AMPS or ETACS voice channel in an analog cellular network or the transmission of a document using a fax machine. After establishing a connection, all data is sent from the first fax machine to the second in a single, long stream of bits. The bits in this case are transmitted as different frequency tones on the telephone line. A high pitched toned may represent a "1" while a low pitched tone may represent a "0." The receiving fax receives the bits of the message by translating the series of high and low pitch tones into data bits and reconstructs the original document.

Packet switched networks are another type of data communication networks in which all data are transmitted as many, small chunks of data bits called packets and sent individually from one location to another. A packet is a self-contained portion of a full message that is made up of a header, data bits, and sometimes a footer. The packet contains information in the header and footer that allows the data communications network to properly transmit the packet and to know which message the data in the packet belongs to. Packet switched networks are classified as connection oriented or connectionless depending on how the packets are transferred. In connection-oriented networks, a network channel is used which is predefined for each transmission, whereas, in connectionless networks, packets are sent simultaneously on a shared channel in multiple transmissions. In this case, packets require an identifier that gives the address of the receiver. This address is understood by the communications network to allow the packet to be properly sent to the correct receiver. Since each packet can be transmitted separately and thus interleaved in time with packets from other transmissions, it is generally more efficient to use a connectionless transmission method when using shared network resources.

An example of a connectionless, packet-based transmission is a file transfer between two computers on an internet protocol (IP) based, Ethernet network that both computers are attached to. In this case, the file that is to be transmitted is fragmented at the transmitter into appropriate packets and labeled with the IP address, which is the identifier used by the network to forward the packet to the correct receiver. The packets are then sent from the transmitting computer to the receiving computer. The Ethernet network is capable of supporting multiple file transfers from many different computers all using the same network by controlling the flow of packets from each destination in a shared fashion. The receiver then assembles the packets into an exact copy of the original file, completing the transmission.

All communication networks utilize some form of communication protocol to regulate the transmission and reception of information. A protocol is the set of rules that all hardware and software on a communication network must follow to allow proper communication of data to take place. Many hundreds of protocols are in active use today in the worldwide exchange of information. Some of these protocols, such as the Internet Protocol (IP), Transport Control Protocol (TCP) or the User Datagram Protocol (UIDP), define the way in which the network is accessed. Other protocols, such as the Internet Protocol (IP), Ping, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), or simple network management protocol (SNMP), etc., also define how messages and packets are formatted, transmitted, and received.

All communication networks may be analyzed and measured in some fashion to evaluate the efficiency and performance of the network as well as to confirm the network is functioning properly. In order to evaluate the functionality of these data networks, certain performance criteria are used. These performance criteria include, but are not limited to: SNR, SIR, RSSI, Ec/Io, number of retries, throughput, bandwidth, quality of service, bit error rate, packet error rate, frame error rate, dropped packet rate, packet latency, round trip time, propagation delay, transmission delay, processing delay, queuing delay, network capacity, packet jitter, bandwidth delay product and handoff delay time. Each performance criterion specifies a different performance parameter of a data communications network, or relates a specific measurement to well known general metrics as taught here. These criteria are further described below, and may be measured to determine, during a field survey or through remote means, the quality of the network under study.

A link is a portion of a path followed by a message between a transmitter and a receiver in a data communications network. Network connections often consist of individual devices relaying network packets from the transmitter to the receiver. This means a network connection can consist of several actual transmissions between the original transmitter and the intended receiver. Each individual relay is called a link. Typically a full network connection consists of several links. Performance criteria can be measured for each individual link. Such concepts and terms are well understood by practitioners.

Received Signal Strength Intensity (RSSI) is a measurement of the strength of the transmitted signal a receiver detects. It is generally measured in watts (W), milliwatts (mW), or decibels relative to milliwatts (dBm), or some other metric that is mathematically related to signal strength (for example, the E-field or open circuit voltage) and reflects the power of the signal being received. In many communication systems, RSSI directly reflects the quality of the connection between the transmitter and receiver. Signal-to-Interference (SIR) and Signal-to-Noise (SNR) are comparisons of the RSSI of the desired signal to the RSSI of other signals (i.e., interferers) or general background, spurious, thermal, or cosmic noise. These comparisons are ratios, generally measured in decibels (dB), and provides a separate perspective on the quality of the communication link between transmitter and receiver. Similarly, Ec/Io is the Energy in a spread spectrum chip, divided by the Interference energy in a detection bandwidth, and this is related to SNR and SIR.

Throughput is a measurement of the amount of data, which can be transmitted between two locations in a data network, not including header, footer or routing information bits. It is generally measured in bits per second (bps) or symbols per second (sps) and can be specified for hardware, software, firmware or any combination thereof that make up a connection between transmitter and receiver in a data communication network. Frame Error Rate (FER) and Bit Error Rate (BER) are statistical measures of the instantaneous or average likelihood of receiving a frame or bit in error through one or more channels or paths in the network, between any two particular network points. Bandwidth is the raw data rate that may be sustained by a given communications network and is generally slightly higher than throughput. For instance, an Ethernet link may be rated for a 10 Mbps bandwidth but a measurement of an actual file transfer may show that the rate at which data can actually be transferred between two computers using that same link is only a throughput of 6.8 Mbps as is taught in Peterson, L. L. and Davie, B. S., Computer Networks: A Systems Approach. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2000. Bandwidth may alternatively mean the RF or baseband passband of a filter or channel. Bandwidth is defined in many ways in textbooks such as "Wireless Communications: Principles and Practice," by T. S. Rappaport, c. 1996, and the second edition of the same text, c. 2002.

Quality of service (QoS) is a term that is used to describe networks that allocate a certain amount of bandwidth to a particular network transmitter. Such a network will allow a transmission to request a certain bandwidth. The network will then decide if it can guarantee that bandwidth or not. The result is that network programs have a reliable bandwidth that can more easily be adapted to. When the quality of service of a connection is measured, the bandwidth that the network claims to offer should be compared to the actual bandwidth for different requested bandwidths. QoS also relates to packet delay, BER, FER, and the number of retries needed to successfully communicate data packets throughout a network.

FIG. 1 illustrates the difference between bits, packets, and frames. Various error rates are defined for data communication networks for bits, packets and frames. Bits are the core of packets and frames. The bits are the actual message data that is sent on the communications network. Packets include the data bits and the packet header and packet footer. The packet header and packet footer are added by communications network protocols and are used to ensure the data bits are sent to the right location in the communications network and interpreted correctly by the receiver. The packet header and packet footer are also used to ensure that packets are sent correctly and that errors are detected should they occur. Frames are simply series of bits with a certain pattern or format that allows a receiver to know when one frame begins or ends. A bit error rate is the percentage of bits that reach the receiver incorrectly or do not reach the receiver as compared to the number of bits sent. Packet error rate or dropped packet rate is the percentage of packets that reach the receiver incorrectly or do not reach the receiver as compared to the number of packets sent. A frame error rate is the percentage of frames that reach the receiver incorrectly or do not reach the receiver as compared to the number of packets sent.

Several terms are used to quantify the delay times of certain network events and may be expressed in time units of seconds. Packet latency is the time required to send a packet from transmitter to receiver, while Round Trip Time (RTT) is the time required for a packet to be sent from transmitter to receiver and for some sort of acknowledgement to be returned from the receiver to the original transmitter. Propagation delay, transmission delay, processing delay, and queuing delay describe the time required for different portions of a packet transmission to occur. The packet latency and round trip time of a network connection is found by summing the propagation delay, transmission delay, processing delay and queuing delay of either a one way or round trip network connection. Propagation delay is the time required for a packet to traverse a physical distance from the transmitter to the receiver. Transmission delay is the time required from when the first bit of a packet arrives until the last bit of the same packet arrives. Processing delay refers to the time required to subdivide a data message into the individual packets at the transmitter, and to the time required to recreate the full data message from the data packets at the receiver. Queuing delay refers to the time spent waiting for shared resources to be freed from use by other transmissions. These delay times are all useful for evaluating different aspects of a data communications network performance.

Two other network performance criteria are packet jitter and bandwidth delay product. Packet jitter is the variation in the arrival time of packets that are expected to arrive at a regular rate and is typically measured in time units of seconds. A bandwidth delay product is the number of bits that can be sent from a transmitter before the first bit sent actually reached the receiver. The bandwidth delay product is found by multiplying the packet latency of a certain link by the bandwidth of the same link.

Handoffs occur in wireless data networks when a user moves out of range of one access point and into range of another access point. In this situation, the first access point must pass the responsibility of delivering data to the wireless user to the second access point. The handoff time is the amount of time required by an access point to coordinate with another access point to allow a wireless user to connect from one access point to another access point.

While the above explanation teaches some of the basic parameters that may be measured or which are of interest to current day wireless and wired networks, it should be clear that other important metrics or parameters, which relate to the instantaneous, average, peak, minimum, near-term, or long-term performance of a communications network, are known now or may be known in the future. The above list of parameters are useful to measure and record, so that technicians may understand the functioning of the network, so that troubleshooting, improvements, or evaluation of network quality may be quantitatively obtained through measurement, and displayed, stored, presented, archived, or compared with prior performance levels or metrics that were obtained earlier or by other personnel. Furthermore, it is evident that there are metrics or quantities or values that may be related to the above listing of parameters, which may be known now or in the future, which could be measured to determine or quantify performance levels or quality levels for communications networks, and such metrics may also be measured, monitored, displayed, stored, presented, and compared with prior performance metrics.

While the above description of a communications network has detailed many of the important network parameters that can or should be measured to determine actual performance of a network that is installed in the field, it should be clear to anyone skilled in the art of plumbing, air conditioning, heating, structured cabling, or in other areas that involve the installation, test, troubleshooting, or repair of a distributed network of components within buildings, between buildings, or throughout a group of buildings, that there are other pertinent metrics or quality levels, specific to the particular type of distributed network of components, that can or should be measured to determine the performance of the particular distributed network of interest. For example, to test the performance of an air conditioning system, it is appropriate to measure temperatures in different rooms of a building while the air conditioning system is running, and to record those measured values to determine if the proper distribution of building cooling is occurring. Similarly, water pressure can be measured in a water pipe system at various spatially separated locations in the water piping system; temperatures may be measured to determine if water heaters are functioning and properly distributing heated water throughout a campus; and voltages or currents throughout a distributed cabling system, for example, can be measured to determine if proper power distribution is occurring in a cabling system or structured cable installation. Thus, it is clear that for various distributed networks of components, there are known to skilled artisans various parameters and equipments that are used to properly measure, monitor, display, visualize, store, present, and compare various performance metrics.

Furthermore, it should be clear to one skilled in the art that for purposes of real estate assessment, or for measuring and recording the quality of various objects at different locations in space, it is advantageous to have a means of measuring or quantifying the physical condition, aesthetic quality, suitability for occupancy, condition of the physical conditions, proper amount of furnishings, cost of goods, quantity of particular objects, or other physical or observable attributes involving the suitability or inventory of spatially distributed objects, within a computer device that a relatively unskilled person can carry around for rapid recording of observable results.

The current invention teaches a valuable innovation that allows user-defined, settable or selectable textual strings or graphical icons to be used in conjunction with such field measurements or observations described above, such that the invention provides meaningful contextual displays and recording of information regarding physical location of the measurement or the meaning of the measurement, itself. For example, a facilities manager may wish to evaluate the quality of the paint job or the quality of the paint that has been used at many different buildings throughout a city or a number of cities. By traveling to each city to visit each building, the painter may visually inspect, or use a camera or infrared measuring device or similar measurement tool, to record the particular quality of paint, and such quality of paint job or paint could be measured, displayed, and stored using textual or graphical icons as taught by this invention. For rental property, where various apartments or dormitories are to be rented and each apartment must first be measured or checked for appropriate furnishings, quality, inventory, or suitability, the present invention could be used to rapidly provide a means of displaying, recording and storing the survey results in a manner that conveys significant meaning to the user without requiring the user to understand or know the specifics regarding the measurements or the measurement locations prior to their performance of the field survey. The description below demonstrates that the invention may be applied to a wide range of applications where rapid surveys or measurements or inspections of objects in space are required, often by individuals who lack extensive computer background or training, or who lack specific knowledge of the technical details or rationale for the particular measurements that they are tasked with conducting.

For the specific case of communications networks, software utilities and hardware devices (e.g. measurement tools) have been developed to measure the performance statistics of data communication networks on an on-going basis, instantaneously, or throughout the lifetime of data communication networks. Some of the more common and relevant tools are briefly described here.

A large number of technical, command line tools are available to quickly allow a computer user to measure the approximate network performance of a connection. Many command line programs are widely used on Windows, UNIX, and Macintosh operating systems and are somewhat useful for diagnostic and troubleshooting work on data networks. Examples of these command line programs include ping and traceroute. Using the ping command line program, it is possible to measure approximate data latency between different data network devices and confirm that a network connection is available between the two devices. Network connections often consist of individual devices relaying network packets from the transmitter to the receiver. This means a network connection can consist of several actual transmissions between the original transmitter and the intended receiver. Each individual relay is called a link. Typically a full network connection consists of several links. Thus, using traceroute, a probable path from relaying device to relaying device between the transmitter and the receiver can be determined so that the exact links used by the network transmissions are known. Additionally, using traceroute, the time required to traverse each individual link can be measured, and individual links that may not be functioning properly can be identified.

Various command line tools that are not included with operating systems have also been developed for somewhat more accurate, though still approximate, network measurement tasks. Some examples of these tools include ttcp, and tcpdump. ttcp stands for Test TCP http://www.pcausa.com/Utilities/pcattcp.htm and is a free utility originally written for the BSD Linux operating system, but is now available for other UNIX operating systems as well as Microsoft Windows. ttcp is a basic point-to-point throughput measurement program that allows the user to control buffer sizes, various low level TCP or UDP options and control the exact data that is sent.

tcpdump is a simple utility from the class of tools called packet sniffers. Packet sniffers allow a network administrator to view the content, including header and footer information, of actual packets on a network. tcpdump allows a user to view (or "sniff") packets that are received by a host (though not necessarily intended for that host) and display all headers that match a certain user configurable pattern. tcpdump is a useful tool for troubleshooting network connections because it allows the user a direct view of the exact network traffic.

Pathchar is a UNIX command line utility which is capable of measuring the throughput between each network relay device (e.g. a router, hub or switch) in a data communications network by varying the size of the test packets that it transmits and measuring the latency of that packet transmission to various network points. The tool functions very similarly to traceroute but adds the ability to measure throughput (albeit indirectly), not just latency. Pathchar is only limited by the network hardware in the links it measures. The program needs a hub, switch or computer to transmit an acknowledgement to the test packets. This means that hidden links that do not transmit acknowledgements such as Ethernet bridges cannot be measured individually by pathchar. All of the above listed tools and techniques require some degree of computer capabilities, and often are used by more technical individuals, such as information technology staff members or engineers or technicians skilled in the art of computer communications and networking.

Several companies produce technically sophisticated network measurement, monitoring, tracking and forecasting utilities. Some of the commonly used utilities are discussed below. The tools selected are illustrative of the state of the art of network performance measurement, and illustrate that a high degree of technical knowledge is currently required to properly use such tools.

NetIQ Corporation (formerly Ganymede Software, Inc.) makes a network monitoring and forecasting tool called Chariot. Chariot is able to measure throughput and many other network statistics for all popular network types, operating systems and protocols available today. The program uses a server and several small agent programs to collect data. The server checks each agent, installed on user's computers throughout the network, at regular intervals and uses them to measure network characteristics while storing the results on the server. These agents can measure the network connection to the server or to one another and are capable of simulating the traffic patterns of any network program and any desired usage pattern of one or more hypothetical users. The program is also capable of using the measured data to forecast expected network traffic and conditions.

Visonael Corporation (formerly NetSuite Development Corporation) makes several network tracking and measurement products, including NetSuite Audit, Design and Advisor. These software products are capable of automatically detecting the network equipment in use. This information as well as manually entered information can then be placed in a physical or logical diagram of the network. Visonael also offers a product to verify that networks have been configured properly and can make recommendations for configuration changes and upgrades to your network.

SAFCO Technologies, Inc. (now a part of Agilent Technologies) has created several wireless data measurement and prediction products. SAFCO makes a product called DataPrint, which is used to measure various data performance parameters of mobile telephone data networks.

Berkeley Varitronics has developed hardware products that measure and demodulate various packets in a wireless LAN network. These products include the Cricket, Cicada, Alligator and Grasshopper which measure off-air wireless LAN network signal strengths and data.

Spirent Communications (and its TAS subsidiary) has a number of products for Operations Support Systems (OSS) and network monitoring, including a recent hand-held WLAN measurement system for IEEE 802.11b networks.

Wireless Valley Communications, Inc. has created SitePlanner®, which is capable of predicting, measuring and tracking the site-specific network performance of a data communications network in a three-dimensional computer model of a physical environment. SitePlanner uses a software module called LANFielder™ to measure throughput, packet latency and packet error rates for any wired or wireless network connection in any Internet Protocol (IP) data communications network. LANFielder is detailed in co-pending application Ser. No. 09/688,145. Additionally, SitePlanner allows a full network to be modeled in a physically accurate manner so that precise measurements and performance predictions can be made in a site specific way. The process utilized by SitePlanner to collect and embed measurements into a computer model of a physical environment is detailed more fully in co-pending application Ser. No. 09/221,985.

Several US patents somewhat related to, and which allow, the present disclosed invention are listed below:

• Inventors
  Rappaport, Theodore; Skidmore, Roger; Henty, Benjamin;
• Assignee
  Wireless Valley Communications, Inc. (Austin, TX)
• Published
  Mar-28-2006
• Current US Classes:
  345/582
  705/10
• Application #
  015954
• International Classes
  G09G 5/00     (20060101); G06F 17/60    (20060101)
• Field of Search
  345/970 345/735 345/716 345/582 702/32 702/67 702/188 705/10 705/5 705/7 705/1 703/13 703/1 709/202 709/223 713/340 715/716 700/17
• Examiner
  Bella; Matthew C.
• Agent
  Whitham, Curtis, Christofferson & Cook, PC
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